Viva la Vida
by xlifelongsorrowx
Summary: It's one thing to survive. It's another thing to live. But how can you live when your heart is gone? Future!fic Klaine, and Faberry. M for smut and language


Waking up was still hard to do.

It still hurt, lying in an empty bed, simply staring at the ceiling. It had gotten to the point where he no longer bothered sleeping. Every few nights he would doze uncomfortably for a few hours, but that was better than facing the demons that haunted him during the night. Better than facing the saccharine memories, knowing that they would be ripped away from him, torn to shreds, burned to ashes.

All of his dreams ended the same way, resulting in him sitting up, gasping for breath, clutching his quickly beating heart, the only reminder that it was still physically in his body. But emotionally? It was long gone.

And so was _he_.

It had been five years. Five years, and still he couldn't think of his lost lover without bursting into sobs. The moment his lover had walked out the door, he had taken his heart, and shattered his life as he did so. Now he was gone, and he had left Kurt to pick up the shattered pieces of his life.

Everything had fallen apart. In the past five years, all his dreams for himself had been shattered. He had dropped out of school, he had lost his job, he had lost everything. And he couldn't find it in himself to care. He had hit rock bottom, and no one knew.

Thank god for small miracles. If someone had asked him during high school who would have come to his rescue when he had sunk the lowest, when he felt that his life was no longer worth living, he surely would have said Mercedes, Tina, Finn, or maybe even Rachel. Hell, she even lived in New York with him, it would have made sense.

But never Quinn Fabray.

In the end, it was the best possible fit. Quinn was getting a degree in psychology, with a nursing degree as a fallback. She had saved him. If she hadn't been there, Kurt would no longer be an active part of the earth, he would be nothing more than a morbid story spanning a few lines of the paper, a cold unmoving body in a morgue.

Sometimes Kurt wished she hadn't come.

In the past five years, he had hit every stage of acceptance, grief and denial. He had sunk below his rock of rock bottom. He had spent three months talking to air, interacting with it, as if _he _were still present. It was during that stage that Quinn had moved in with him. Shortly after that, he had a mental breakdown, resulting in him being hospitalized for the second time in four months.

Two years later, Quinn had managed to slowly coax him out of their condo. He barely managed to make it to the lobby; as soon as he smelled the scent of fresh coffee, he had bolted-rather like a frightened rabbit-and dashed up towards his condo. However Quinn had beamed for the rest of the week, calling it 'progress'. Kurt called it heartbreak.

Six months after that, Quinn found Kurt a job, and by some miracle, actually got him to work there. Part of the reason Kurt was doing it was because he felt guilty. He had been doing nothing for two and a half years. He had been hospitalized several times, and went to therapy twice a week, not to mention had a therapist in training living with him. Yet he had no job. He never asked how Quinn managed to support the two of them, but he suspected Rachel was involved. They never talked about it.

The employer Quinn found for him was kind, but rough. He didn't treat Kurt any differently. He knew his background story, but he made no indication that he did. He owned a garage, which Kurt welcomed with warm familiarity. His employer reminded him of his own father, setting him at ease. The garage was pure, nothing reminded him of _him_. He could interact with the other mechanics, and he quickly was promoted time and time again. He always liked working with cars.

Six months later, he was handed a number by a waiter at the Italian restaurant he went to with Rachel and Quinn. Two weeks after that the pair went out on their very first date. Kurt had always been one to fall too hard in love, too quickly, but so was Dylan. It made things so much easier. Quinn had warned him to go slow, but they approached their relationship like a freight train. However Kurt had always slammed up his barriers when it came to sex. He may have been in denial about the state of his emotions, he knew he wasn't ready for that.

Which was why, a year later, after proposing to Dylan, and refusing to put out once again, he woke up to find his condo devoid of his boyfriend.

He was hospitalized five more times.

He could see the desperation in Quinn's eyes when he talked to her in a monotone. He knew that she was frustrated, wanting to help him, but unable to him. But some things just couldn't be helped. She couldn't change the fact that he was unappealing, that everyone left him at some point. He had long ago sacrificed his self worth, and it was showing. Four of his most recent hospital visits had to do with newly developed eating and cutting disorders. The doctors said he was slowly killing himself, but they simply didn't understand.

The part of him that mattered was already dead.

Kurt no longer listened to music. He had given his iPod to Quinn, and deleted all of the playlists off of his laptop. It was not like when Finn had used that word in his basement all those years ago. He could not put on a mopey playlist, and perk himself up with some Patti LuPone. No, he needed it gone. He needed all of the reminders gone.

He deleted all of the pictures off his laptop, except for the ones of his mother. He kept those. All of the other ones, including all his fun times with New Directions, were gone. He knew Quinn had figured out how to retrieve them from his hard drive, but he didn't want to.

The most painful of all the measures he had taken to rid himself of _his_ presence, was not completely gone. Kurt had gathered all of _his_ things and placed them in a box. It was utterly cliché, but it was something he had to do. Kurt had moved throughout the condo like a tornado, not spending more than five seconds on each item, trying to toss them in the box, and get things over with as soon as possible.

He had debated for several days where to put the box. He couldn't keep it in the room he shared with Quinn. It was too painful, and if she found it, she would be disappointed. The blonde had been trying to get him to move on for years now, but he never had.

There was an obvious choice, but Kurt couldn't bring himself to do it. He hadn't entered the room that he had once shared with _him_ since _he _left. It was too painful. Just walking down the hallway to go to the bathroom, passing that door every time he did so, and knowing what memories lied beyond the beautiful wood made Kurt want to burst into tears. On really bad days, he often turned to his razor, which somehow Quinn always found out about.

She called it a breakthrough though, when he bitched Rachel out, seven months ago, for being 'overdramatic'. She had said something along the lines of Kurt acting like something out of a Twilight novel, which had been Kurt's breaking point.

In the privacy of Rachel's own condo, he had yelled at her, trying to convey how hurt he was. Why couldn't she understand that it was so much more than being dumped? He had given _him_ everything he could, all of his love, his virginity, all his affection, his adoration. He had completely invested himself in their relationship, he had put his everything on the line. He had emptied himself for _him _and when _he _left, Kurt was left with nothing.

He had to start over from scratch, but the abandonment had caused deep scars. _He _had known that. Kurt had abandonment issues. He had trusted two people completely with that knowledge, trusted them never to leave him. To this day, his father had not yet let him down. The other had, in the worst of ways.

Once Kurt began to sift through the abandonment issues, which were not even close to being resolved, he had to try and figure out _why_ he had been abandoned. _Why _had _he _left? Kurt had come to the conclusion that it was him, a theory further reiterated by Dylan's betrayal. There was something wrong with Kurt, he drove people away. He was not the type of guy that men wanted to be with, and that was that.

There began his self-esteem issues.

Kurt had so many issues. He was so screwed up. He would lie awake at night, mulling all of them over, wondering where he went wrong. Though he no longer listened to music, there was one song, a single song that replayed in his head over and over. He had never been particularly fond of the Fray, finding all of their music to sound similar, but one song described his situation perfectly. That was what he had once loved about music. He could always find a song that would relate to what he was feeling at the moment. But he no longer wanted to remember.

He would lie at wake remembering, and sometimes he would remember in his dreams. Everything was so real, it was awful. Kurt was often trapped in the dreams, unable to escape the beautiful, tainted memories from playing before his eyes. He always awoke with tears streaming down his face, curses rolling off his tongue.

Today was different.

Today, Kurt woke up not remembering a single dream he had.

Today Kurt woke up feeling happy.

Today, Kurt wanted to listen to _music._

For a few minutes, Kurt lay perfectly still, shocked by how he was feeling. He was…content. Not whole, he would never be whole again. However, he woke up feeling happy, peaceful even. There were no bitter thoughts, no criticisms full of self loathing. He felt better than he had in years, and he had no idea why.

He quickly scrambled out of his bed, wanting to make the most of this feeling while it lasted. He quickly pushed the sheets back, and stumbled out of the room he shared with Quinn. The blonde had already left for work, he presumed. Good. He did not want to waste any time analyzing what he was feeling, or why. They could do that later, when the good feelings were gone, because Kurt was no longer naïve enough to entertain the idea that they would stay.

Bounding into the modern looking kitchen, Kurt grinned as he spotted the radio discreetly hidden behind the toaster. He may have given up music, but Quinn certainly hadn't. Being the doll she was, she never listened to it when he was in vicinity. He had to remember to thank her. She truly was an angel. Kurt still didn't believe in God-certainly not after the ordeal over the past few years-but he believed in miracles, and he truly believed in his heart that Quinn was one. Maybe his mom was watching out for him.

Fumbling with the dials, Kurt struggled how to remember to adjust the radio. It had been so long since he listened to music, and even then it was typically on his iPod, or in his car. Finally figuring out the settings, Kurt's face lit up ecstatically, realizing it was a Lady Gaga song. It was rather old now, but he sang along anyways.

_Just dance,_

_Spin that record babe,_

_Just dance, gonna be okay_

The words stuck with Kurt. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he dared to hope. Maybe he was going to be okay. Maybe he really was going to make it through. He would have to make a lot of changes, but there was still a chance. He had no idea where this epiphany of hope was coming from, but he wasn't questioning it.

Feeling good enough to make some coffee, Kurt decided to do Quinn a favor and began sifting through papers on the island. He found one with his name on it, written in Rachel's loopy scrawl, and signed with a gold star. Frowning, Kurt examined it further, and realized it was a whole stack of papers. A script. According to the post it note Rachel had left for Quinn, it was supposedly for the next biggest hit on Broadway, and she thought he'd be perfect for the part. Biting his lip, Kurt looked through it, and realized that the part looked as if it were made for him.

He was still taking baby steps, but this was good. Auditions were in a month, that would give him a goal. He now had something to work towards, to keep him happy, to keep him in this good, ecstatic mood. As the timer on the coffee machine dinged, Kurt grabbed a Styrofoam cup and filled it up with the steaming brown liquid. As he added creamer and sugar, the doorbell rang.

Kurt frowned. The only person who ever came here was Rachel, and she had a key. Besides, since Kurt's explosion, she had mostly been coming to see Quinn. Not bothering to look away from his coffee, Kurt called out happily, "You can come in Rachel!"

He expected some sort of noise from the other door. A squeak or a shriek, or maybe the clatter of keys hitting the floor. After all, his voice was chipper, and it was the morning. Even before Kurt's depression, he had never been a morning person, a fact Rachel knew all too well.

However, there was simply another knock.

Rolling his eyes, Kurt strode over to the door, muttering about lazy divas under his breath. He was clutching the cup of warm coffee to his chest, trying not to trip over his overlong sweats. Hmm, they hadn't seemed this big when he put them on the night before. They must have been Finn's. Grumbling, he opened the door, and saw who was on the other side.

Eyes widening the size of saucers, Kurt immediately dropped his cup of coffee which spilled on the floor, and splattered on his sweats, and the pants of the person standing on the other side.

'"Blaine." He managed to croak out.

The world started spinning, before he was met with a wonderful dark numbness.


End file.
